The What-Might-Be’s & Might-Have-Been’s

Now we’re old enough to know that
One road ends where one begins
The moment where the what-might-be’s
Turn into might-have-been’s

– Beth & Lucas

From the Original Broadway Cast Recording starring Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp

As I’ve grown older, I’ve undoubtedly made more choices in my life. Decisions like which college I would attend?, who would I ask to prom? and what should I make for dinner? all fall to the past as time moves me forward.

Sure, some choices aren’t monumental – some I don’t even recall making – but ultimately they all culminated in my being where I am today.

It’s easy to look back and wonder what my life would be had I made a different choice. What if I’d chosen Miami University over Ohio State? What if I had asked Mary instead of Lisa? How different would my life look today had one of these things been different?

Obviously, all I can do is speculate, but this is the concept If/Then toys with: showing you Beth’s (Idina Menzel) life in multiple ways, both distinct based on choices she could have made different.

Whenever I find myself wondering how different my life would be if I had done something differently in the past, it’s easy to get lost “might-have-been’s.’ Still, there’s no way to be sure. Perhaps I’d be in the same exact place I am today or maybe it’d only be slightly altered.

Idina Menzel & Anthony Rapp

Yet, when I start to think of all the things I have and am grateful for, it’s hard to not look back and recognize that I have those things because of the choices I made because, despite how hard we try, the past isn’t malleable. We can’t change it, even though glimpses of it linger in our minds calling to question the “might-have-been’s.”

Had I not gone to Ohio State, I wouldn’t have ended up transferring to Kent State. I wouldn’t have made the friends at Kent that changed my life, and I most certainly wouldn’t have the job I do today.

So it’s funny how the sequence of our lives plays out. It’s a grand story unfolding right before us, and while it’s fun to think of how my life could or might be different, it’s ultimately those things in my life that I hold dear that pull me back. Those are the things that remind me that, even though the “might-have-been’s” remain dangling in my past, it’s the “what-might-be’s” that I need to stay focused on.